on the race card at a meeting?

Depends what paper you use. they all at some time produce guides to their abbreviations. Sometimes it's best not to understand like the man that won on a horse with the form lines- FFFP ... won at 25-1 his mate said "good god! what made you back that?" He replied " the form, look, First,First

maybe scan it or provide a list and get people to look and help you out? i admit i have used the services of a bookmaker once or twice in my life and i don't know them all at all. i have often wondered how people seem to work it out straight away. so i'm glad you asked because i thought i was just being dense!

In Britain the Form Figures in the paper show where/how the horse has finished/performed in its last six races using the following:1 = 1st, 2 = 2nd, upto 6 = 6thGreater than 6th = 0P = Pulled Up (did not finsh)U = Unseated RiderF = FellC = Carried OutR = Refused to RaceIn addition to the above a [C] next to the horses name indicates it has won at the course it is running at today and a [D] informs us it has won at the distance it is running at today.In themselves, unfortunately, they do not provide a defintive guide as to how a horse will run on the day and care should be applied to any system that relies on these figures alone. However, a cheap and cheerful system that is similar to a system used by Clive Holt a proffesional horseplayer is a follows:Using the last two form figures only calculate as follows:1st = 5pts2nd = 3pts3rd = 2pts4th = 1 ptsC = 2 ptsD = 3 ptsTherefore if horse A has form figures of 45121 (the latest run is always on the right) and had won at the distance being run [D] we would calculate a form figure for it as follows: 1 = 5 pts2 = 3ptsD = 3 ptsTotal = 11 ptsDo this for every horse in the race and the horse with the highest rating is the one to have a closer look at. However, while this is a crude method of selecting a horse to back it is better than sticking a pin in the racecard.